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Posted

Dropped 20,000 feet in 2 minutes. Fuck.

Flight tracking sites report the plane was in the air for just over an hour, and was nearing its destination when it went down in Wuzhou, a verdant, hilly area prone to mixed weather at this time of year as China enters its annual flood season.

The weather was cloudy but visibility was reported to have been good at the time of the crash.

The plane dropped thousands of metres in three minutes, flight tracker data showed.

According to FlightRadar24 data, the plane was cruising at 29,100 feet but two minutes and 15 seconds later it was recorded at 9,075 feet. The last sourced information on the flight showed it ended at 14:22 local time, at an altitude of 3,225 ft.

The Boeing 737-800 plane was seven years old, according to tracker websites. It's the predecessor model to the Boeing 737 Max line, which were the planes involved in deadly crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-60819760

Posted
6 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Something like that had to be a pilot suicide deal, right?  Those poor souls.  

Seems very unlikely, the descent briefly plateaued before continuing, like the pilots were fighting it. Just a total mechanical failure of some kind. 

Posted
1 minute ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Another angle from a dash cam.

 

Good grief. I can't imagine the terror - just hope everyone was completely unconscious once the descent started.

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Posted
24 minutes ago, Deej said:

I couple of minutes seems like too long to think about it. 

Not to make light of it but, yeah, even waiting in front of the microwave for two minutes can feel like an eternity.

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Posted
41 minutes ago, Wally Pryor said:

That thing went down quick. Passengers didn't have too long to think about it but, Jesus, must have been brutal. 

 

18E5435E-31EC-481B-8EDF-C7411BF7680D.jpeg

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Posted
3 minutes ago, RPM said:

Pull up! Pull up!

No shit! No shit!

Judging by the altitude graph, it looks like they did successfully pull it up for a short bit. Fuck.

 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, freyguy said:

Weren't the previous 737 crashes due to a defect in the auto pilot software?

That is the 737 Max.  The incident plane was a 737-800.  That model has been flying since 1998 and is the workhouse of many airlines, Southwest being a good example.  No known safety issues with that model.

 

 

Posted

When I was a kid, my family and I were going from Orlando to Austin and we hit really bad turbulence. It was pretty much like a roller coaster where I would lose my stomach as we dropped. The stewardess was crying as were a decent number of passengers. There was an incredible amount of flex in the wings as this was going on. I assume modern electronics keeps airplanes from hitting that kind of weather now. But, could those huge drops cause a wing to snap.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Bevo said:

But, could those huge drops cause a wing to snap.

You'll be the first to know if it does.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Bevo said:

When I was a kid, my family and I were going from Orlando to Austin and we hit really bad turbulence. It was pretty much like a roller coaster where I would lose my stomach as we dropped. The stewardess was crying as were a decent number of passengers. There was an incredible amount of flex in the wings as this was going on. I assume modern electronics keeps airplanes from hitting that kind of weather now. But, could those huge drops cause a wing to snap.

i would assume any structural damage like a loss of a wing would result in spin? 

Posted
1 minute ago, Bateshorn said:

I’m literally staring at a 737-800 I’m about to board in 10 minutes. 
Nervous Winter Olympics GIF by Team USA

planes aren't like celebrity deaths. they don't happen in pairs or threesomes. 

but i guess there's always a first.

Posted

I've flown on a 737-800 on China Eastern Airlines into the departing airport before in 2017. At the time it seemed like they were a reasonably competent group compared to some of the other flights in China, and well ahead of Lao Airlines. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, Royalfan5 said:

I've flown on a 737-800 on China Eastern Airlines into the departing airport before in 2017. At the time it seemed like they were a reasonably competent group compared to some of the other flights in China, and well ahead of Lao Airlines. 

Otoh, I’ve flown Lao and lived to tell the tale. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Helobious said:

Seems very unlikely, the descent briefly plateaued before continuing, like the pilots were fighting it. Just a total mechanical failure of some kind. 

possibility the co-pilot trying to wrestle it away for a short period from a suicide pilot.

that video looks like a kamazie pilot.  

could be a fire that destroyed controls like the JetBlue deal in Florida.  weird

Posted
Just now, Helobious said:

Yeah I’m about to board a flight. My head is saying 2 unrelated plane crashes on the same day would be astronomically unlikely. But not impossible. 

I flew a United DC-10 to Chicago the day after Flight 232 augured in at Des Moines. Hey Babe, take a walk on the wild side.

Posted
3 minutes ago, SuperSport said:

Pics and drone footage from crash site...other than a small winglet section, nothing recognizable beyond the impact crater. Scary shit.

 

 

I mean.....holy shit.  There's functionally no debris.  It's like it just vaporized.  Not even a fire scar on surrounding vegetation.

That's just horrific to see.

Posted
Just now, dcar00 said:

possibility the co-pilot trying to wrestle it away for a short period from a suicide pilot.

Hitting thicker air at 10k gave a bit of surface control before physics took over again.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

possibility the co-pilot trying to wrestle it away for a short period from a suicide pilot.

that video looks like a kamazie pilot.  

could be a fire that destroyed controls like the JetBlue deal in Florida.  weird

Nobody has done high-res frame by frame of those videos yet, but the plane looks to be intact and under control flying straight (down, unfortunately!)  An in-flight break-up wouldn't look like that, and even a loss of elevator control wouldn't put a plane into a missile trajectory.  Very odd.

Posted
2 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

possibility the co-pilot trying to wrestle it away for a short period from a suicide pilot.

that video looks like a kamazie pilot.  

could be a fire that destroyed controls like the JetBlue deal in Florida.  weird

Huge drop, small plateau with slight pull up, then almost vertical drop seems hard to think kamakize unless the suicidal pilot took back over control.

Failure of hydraulic system with an emergency reset and then subsequent backup failure is my guess. 

Posted
14 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

Otoh, I’ve flown Lao and lived to tell the tale. 

Me too. Being on an ag trade type trip, we all noted we were being loaded on the prop plane like you would a flatbed, and the airport was basically a ok farm shop. That being said they had the best ham salad sandwiches I've ever had. 

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